September 30, 2013

Jack O'Dwyer, who operates the influential public relations site Odwyerpr.com, started out as a journalist. He still writes. And along the way he learned how to make a good buck. The writing life and financial success are not mutually exclusive.

Today on Odwyerpr.com, Jack gets blunt with starving writers. Here you can read his assessment of why they're in a panic and how to get out of it.

Among Jack's recommendations is to stop horsing around with social media. Instead to develop new business or find a real job, do it the old-fashioned way. Pick up the phone. Use email. And get in people's faces. In addition, he warns against piling up any more education than writers already have. Most have earned a bachelor's degree. That makes them good-to-go in just about any niche of writing they seek to enter. The rest they will learn from clients or on-the-job.

Social media, ranging from Facebook to LinkedIn, is a lot of fun. But the reality is that those contracting out the work or doing the hiring are establishment types. They still sit by their phones. They still use email. They still are persuaded by people who are cagey enough to gain access (even if they act impatient). And most don't give a damn about a laundry list of educational credentials. Their focus is on your getting results. Outcomes, not pedigree, matters.

What I add to Jack's advice is: Be persistent. I have been getting assignments from former clients by finding reasonable reasons for being in-touch. For example, recently I won two awards. You bet, I informed them about them. All of a sudden they remembered my great talents. I worked on their assignments throughout the weekend.

Energy drinks should symbolize the dynamic values of the in-the-now economy. Instead they are taking on a lot of the reputational baggage of tobacco. That includes the scrutiny of constituencies ranging from consumer groups to law enforcement.

The latest energy brand to take a reputational hit is Verve. As Michelle Celarier reports in the NEW YORK POST, there have been questions about what kind of company Vemma, which markets Verve, is. Some contend it is a pyramid scheme. That's because its operations allegedly focus on recruitment of new salespeople, not selling to the consumer. Another reason this is on the radar is that who are recruited are primarily economically vulnerable college students who have to invest cold cash.

Earlier, U.S. senators Richard Blumenthal and Dick Durbin announced that they were looking at energy drinks in general and the Monster brand in particular. KFWB News reports that there was concern about the deaths allegedly associated with consuming that energy beverage. Also of concern is that one of the target markets for energy drinks is youth. They are seen not to have the judgment, as with tobacco, to see beyond the cool image of the product transmitted through advertising.

With this push-back against the whole energy-drink category, some retailers might hesitate to stock them and some ordinary people looking to make a buck might not go near that product for direct-to-the-consumer selling.

The finale of "Breaking Bad" was shocking. Few of us expected the self-absorbed self-pitying Walter White to be capable of self-awareness. Yet, in his last encounter with Skyler she pushes him to own up to what he did and who he is. He does a 180.

He admits he didn't embark on a life of crime to make his family financially secure. No, he did it because it fed his ego. It made him feel alive. And he was good at it.

Soon after Walt takes a bullet in the belly. He was able to set up a $9 million trust for Jr. which the feds can't take away. So, he did accomplish that, even though it was not the main driver.

As many hoped, Jesse lives. How the rest of his life plays out, no sensible person should speculate. Jesse is too complex a character to predict how the recent traumas will affect him. He could become a crime lord. He could enter the priesthood or study to become a Buddhist monk.

September 29, 2013

Ten years ago I passionately adopted a vow of poverty. That wasn't hard. I was in six-figure debt. My business had tanked. And in therapy I admitted that it was the hunger for more more more that got me into the pickle I was in.
Download Geezerguts.

To get that 800-pound gorilla off my back, for good I assumed, I would live an almost monastic existence. The biggest expense was for maintaining the dog and five cats which dated back to more more more. Aside from the vet bills, brandname eats like Fancy Feast, grooming, and litter, the bills coming in were minimal. I even felt it was a lucky break when my car was stolen. One less major expense.

But, time passes. Debt gets paid off. Lucrative ghostwriting assignments piled up. My behavior remained aligned with the vow of poverty. As for my mind, that has been another story.

I longed for a vacation home in Rhode Island. In addition, what about one in Spain also? For hours weekly I researched that on the web. I could feel it: the return of more more more. It has taken a year of meditating (my mantra was "I have everything I need"), chatting things up with a spiritual counselor, and having flashbacks of 2003 to slow down my mind.

As I approach the anniversary date of my meltdown from more more more I feel shaky. No, I am not confident that I can hold onto Lessons Learned.

How to determine the best information, where to access it, and how to do that faster than others in communications. That is the edge we writers need. Without it we will be at a competitive disadvantage.

During the 1980s, public speakers around the world and their speechwriters began to see the benefit in leveraging the language of recovery. Substance abuse was coming out of the closet. At places like the Hazelden Foundation and the "rooms" of Alcoholics Anonymous, those addicted to booze, drugs, and food were adopting a new vocabulary. That lexicon included:

Surrender Lose to Win Turning It Over Trusting the Group Higher Power Making Amends Healing Experience, Strength, and Hope Taking an Inventory of Character Defects

The concepts resonated with audiences. After all, the idea of surrendering was novel. I recall using some of that language with speeches I wrote for the executives at Weight Watchers.

Now the mindsets, phrases, and words could have a second wind. USA TODAY reports that Hazelden and the Betty Ford Center are merging. If the deal is approved by regulators, then the merged entity will be having more outpatient treatment. That means more of the estimated 23 million addicts will have access to recovery. Only about 10% go for treatment today.

Therefore, we speechwriters should begin thinking about how we can present recovery concepts in fresh ways.

September 28, 2013

I wasn't trying to sell my 89-year-old neighbor a credit card or requesting a contribution for Support Hillary. So, there wasn't much need for BigData. I didn't have to filter her whatevers through supercomputers. I got plenty of information about her just by old-fashioned talking. Over a seven year period we had three or four minute conversations several times a month.

I had never entered her apartment. We never had had a cup of coffee together. She had never read anything I wrote.

Yet, we knew each other very well. I realized that as I, yes, talked with her daughter and son in law. She will be entering a nursing home. They are shutting down her apartment.

It turned out that, based on input from me, they could connect the dots on when she began to deteriorate. For example, I shared with them that she was crushed the family hadn't made a fuss for her birthday. Actually, they did. Both they and I were surprised that I was aware of the major tragedies in the family, especially which ones she hadn't gotten over. We figured out which might have been a tipping point in the downward trajectory.

From them, I found out how she sure did have my number. Probably even more than the marketers who analyze that data from my social networks, online purchases, and smartphone use. That's funny. I thought I had used talk to obscure who I really was. As a writer, I balked at the very notion of being part of a community - that is, tribe.

Those who need to know us, ranging from hawkers of products and services to politicos, might just talk with us, in person. It will only take a few minutes. But must be sustained over time.

September 27, 2013

"This Town" by Mark Leibovich has many lessons for those who want to make it big. At least in Washington D.C. It's the best guide to how that particular culture operates since Hedrick Smith's "The Power Game." That was published at the end of the 1980s.

But, what grabbed me, the speechwriter and ghostwriter, by the throat were two takeaways.

One was that everything one does in D.C. must be strategic. That's mandatory in a system in which one's marketplace value is either going up or going down. If we in executive communications want continuing access to the good jobs or good assignments we too can never approach any situation without a strategy. That extends from how we seek out work to how we handle client objections to the draft.

That wasn't always the case. I recall, after my father's death, I turned in a weak speech draft to the Chief Executive Officer of an oil company. He sent back a gentle note asking if I could try again and if not he would go with what I had given him. My track record for serving him was good. Therefore, I never felt threatened. I never measured if I was up or down.

Now, with our clients themselves being caught in the up-down fluctation, their perception of us also fluctuates. We are responsible for managing that perception through paying attention to our strategy.

The second takeaway is that maybe we should be grateful to be relatively invisible and lacking in our own power. Sure, it must be a heady experience to be caught up in the field of force which D.C. is. Everyone (who matters) knows our name. We are so-and-so's writer. The smartphone is forever on vibrate. We are important.

Outside that field of force, we just do our work. I wonder if it could have the quality it does if we were part of that D.C. celebrity culture. Maybe yes. Maybe not. For me, even the highly-charged atmosphere of Manhattan was too much for doing my best work. I sold my co-op and fled back to the boring routines of central Connecticut.

That's my take on "This Town." Other speechwriters and ghostwriters might be convinced, after reading it, to volunteer in the next campaign for a national office. If the person they write for wins, they get into the power game.

We are our talking. That goes from the side comments we make to our co-workers to what we present in our TED Talks. And it all comes under the umbrella of "public speaking."

The most common way we derail the impression we are trying to make and the point of view we are putting out there is by expressing regret.

"I wish I had gotten an MBA."

"It was a mistake to ask for a raise."

"Investing in Las Vegas real estate was the beginning of the end for me."

What's very wrong with regret?

Well, to begin with, it is negative. Negative doesn't transmit well across our neural Wi-Fi.

Secondly, because it involves the past, it marks us as old. Youth doesn't sit around chewing the fat about the past.

Third, everyone in the know knows that regret constitutes our fantasy about the past. It puts forth a story line that is not based on fact. Had we gotten the MBA we might have leveraged that information wrong and wound up in the slammer. People consider us stupid for not knowing that we couldn't know where we'd been had we taken such and such a fork in the road.

The useful way to frame our past is to point to how it served our purpose. For example, I can say, "The years I didn't put into getting me an MBA allowed me focus on getting published. That paid off in a gold-plated portfolio." People hear that and they move toward us, not away from us.

September 26, 2013

In the current issue, THE ECONOMIST frames Walter White's ambition on "Breaking Bad" as a positive business trait. Here you can read that. White, just like Rupert Murdoch, wanted to build an empire. That's a good goal for businesspeople to have, says THE ECONOMIST.

But, White is no Murdoch. He lacks the true empire-building ability of a Murdoch. Part of that is emotional strength and stability. White is breaking down. He regrets Hank's death. He confesses to Jesse that he allowed Jane to die. He is driven to continually even scores as he wants to do with Jack.

Murdoch will be leaving a business empire to his children. White has nothing to pass on to his, not even lessons on how to succeed in a business. In the last episode this coming Sunday the audience will find out if White can even pass through some cold cash for his family. But with the feds watching that's doubtful.

The reality seems to be that White's wild ambition outstripped his skills, judgment, and inner set of controls. Had he not been so ambitious he might have been able to take the money from the meth operation, safely launder it in the car wash, and get out. End of that story.